I don't see the point in asking that question as his friend self-diagnosed himself as "autistic". Jsbi, I assume, is expressing doubt in the self-diagnosis rather than diagnosising his former friend.
I get it. Mental health issues have not been taken seriously in the past to say the least. And we're better off when people can openly talk about them without being ostracized. But you can definitely swing too far in the other direction. I keep meeting people who are almost bragging with their claimed collection of mental illnesses as if it's a lifestyle choice.
This still aligns to what I said no? He himself is expressing doubt with his own reasoning why. Either way it doesn't matter as the assumption shouldn't be his former friend is autistic by default.
The poster is claiming without any evidence other than the "friend" was "self-diagnosed", which doesn't tell us if the "friend" was right, or not, and adding that they knew the diagnosis was wrong because of other claimed attributes.
I'm honestly shocked at the response to me pointing that out.
If you want to go round making judgements on peoples' mental health without any qualification to do so, and post that judgement on social media (which Hacker News is) then I will call you out for that, every time I notice.
People come to these comments claiming to be all about science, all about serious thinking that's not found on other social media, but then this trash gets posted and people calling it out get attacked.
Did you miss that?
Unless either party has an actual set of qualifications to diagnose, then neither should be pronouncing one way or the other.